Police in Pakistan pressed charges against Islamist former Prime Minister Imran Khan this weekend under the nation’s anti-terrorism laws for a speech Khan delivered on Saturday in which he personally named a judge and police officials and threatened not to “spare” them if he returned to power.
The Islamabad High Court, which is processing the case, issued “protective bail” for three days, banning police from arresting Khan, on Monday after Khan’s supporters surrounded his home and vowed to physically prevent police from arresting him.
Khan made his remarks at a rally on Saturday in support of his former chief of staff, Shahbaz Gill, who was arrested on August 9 on charges of “sedition” and “public mischief” for allegedly calling for the military to overthrow the government of current Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, who took over from Khan after the former’s Pakistan Muslim League – Nawaz (PML-N) ousted Khan from power.
Khan remains extremely popular, particularly among the more extreme Islamist elements of Pakistani politics; Sharif has denied calls from Khan to hold popular elections. Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party swept regional by-elections in July, increasing demands for a nationwide vote from Khan and his supporters.
Khan has personally claimed that Sharif’s government is torturing Gill for his alleged comments, which Pakistani media appear careful not to repeat. Khan claimed via social media on Friday, prior to his rally, that Gill had been subjected to “gruesome … sexual abuse” in police custody.
Pakistani police have denied any mistreatment of Gill and assessed him as appearing healthy and not needing any medical attention on Monday, discharging him from a medical facility and returning him to police custody. The court in charge of the case allowed the police two more days on Monday to organize their case against Gill, less time than what prosecutors had requested.
Gill himself told the court on Monday, “I was fed forcefully; 10-12 people shaved me; they lied to me about my bail.”
On Saturday, Khan railed against the Pakistani political “establishment” and named the judge presiding over the Gill case and police officers involved in it as PTI targets.
“We won’t spare you,” Khan is quoted as saying in Pakistani news outlets. He additionally said, addressing Judge Zeba Choudhry, that she should “prepare herself as action would be taken against her,” without elaborating.
Pakistan is a nation that has for decades struggled with mob violence, most commonly against individuals accused of insulting Islam. The Pakistani penal code punishes “blasphemy” against Islam, and allows the death penalty for specific crimes such as insulting Mohammed personally. Pakistan regularly sentences citizens to death for blasphemy but has never actually committed such an execution, as mobs often kill people rumored to have engaged in blasphemy in lynchings.
The Pakistani newspaper Dawn, citing a “first information report,” the initial police documentation on a criminal case in Pakistan, accusing Khan of having “terrorised and threatened top police officials and a respected female additional sessions judge.”
Pakistan’s former Prime Minister and leader of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party (PTI) Imran Khan, speaks during an anti-government protest rally in Islamabad on August 20, 2022. (FAROOQ NAEEM/AFP via Getty)
The Pakistani government also banned broadcasters from airing Khan’s speeches live, demanding a time delay to ensure that the government could censor any comments it disapproved of. The ban also required a time delay for rebroadcasts of old Khan speeches.
Khan is currently out on bail, technically, though his defense attorneys on Monday noted in requesting protective bail that Khan could not physically leave his home as it was “surrounded,” so he presented a minimal flight risk. His attorneys requested more than three days before he needed to present himself in court arguing that he could not physically reach the court even if he wanted to.
The official Twitter account of Khan’s political party, the PTI, has spent much of Monday publishing videos and photos from outside of Khan’s home, showing large crowds of supporters convening to prevent his arrest, many sleeping outside. Some images showed buses full of people from elsewhere in Pakistan planning to reach Khan’s residence.
Khan made a brief appearance to thank supporters on Monday.
“If Imran Khan is arrested by the imported government we will take over Islamabad,” PTI lawmaker Ali Amin Gandapur saif following his arrest, according to Dawn.
“They will have to run over us before they can reach Khan,” a Khan supporter identified as Sher Jahan Khan told Reuters outside of the former prime minister’s home on Monday. Reuters reported a crowd of “dozens” outside of Khan’s home. The Associated Press described “hundreds” of people at the site.
Khan served as prime minister between 2018 and April, succeeding Nawaz Sharif and being ousted in a legislative bid to install his brother, current Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif. Lawmakers pushed a vote of no confidence through that legally resulted in his loss of the office.
The no confidence vote prompted tens of thousands of Pakistani men to take the streets of major cities, demanding Khan’s return to power. Sharif’s government used the military to suppress the protests.
Supporters of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) of former Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan gather outside his residence in Islamabad, Pakistan, on August 22, 2022. (Photo by Muhammad Reza/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)
Khan is a radical Islamist who celebrated the return of the Taliban to control of Afghanistan and applauded al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden as a “martyr” while serving as prime minister. Last year, Khan called for Pakistan and other Muslim nations to boycott trade with non-Muslim states until they issued laws criminalizing “blasphemy” against Islam.
Both Khan and Shehbaz have supported the Chinese Communist Party and its genocide of Muslims in East Turkistan.
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